


there's a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly

by liveyourtemptation



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, M/M, Suicidal Ideation, cyborg harry, sci fi and feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 07:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10782189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liveyourtemptation/pseuds/liveyourtemptation
Summary: and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place--well then, game over.





	there's a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly

**Author's Note:**

> here i go again. title from r.siken.

****I.

Cisco eyes the trash extensively. He is standing in a side alley, hands deep in the pockets of his raincoat and contemplates lifting up a tarp over something lying on the side of the road. It's surrounded by trash bags and other unpleasantness that doesn't smell good at all in the humid air. But Cisco sees a foot poking out from under there. A foot without a shoe or sock.

 

It's a gamble. He crouches to see if he can get a better look without having to touch it. Yep, definitely humanoid body. He looks around until he finds an empty plastic bottle lying on the ground. He picks it up and pokes the foot with it. No reaction. Cisco sighs. He sends out a short prayer to anyone who is listening for this not to end too badly. He leans over and removes the tarp.

 

Cisco startles and at the first moment he thinks, shit, it _is_ a corpse. But then he keeps looking at the man lying between the trash, completely motionless, completely expressionless. He doesn't look like one of the standard models they build these days, not even like one of the chopped up versions. He looks so damn real. But he also doesn't look like a dead human. He looks like he just lied down here for a short nap a few minutes. Cisco sighs again, very deeply, regretting every decision he ever made that led him to this point in his life of him willingly digging through trash. He leans in closer. He can see no wounds or anything, and there is definitely a bad smell from the trash around but he doesn't smell alcohol or other forms of human decay. Cisco reaches out to the man and slips his hand to the back of his neck, to the top of his spine. His skin is smooth until Cisco's finger's hit something that is definitely not human. The hard outline of the access panel. Cisco drops his head and thanks the universe. This must be one of STAR Labs' after all. He looks at the face of the man again. He is closer now and he still looks so real, so human. It's eery. Even though Cisco doesn't exactly agree with STAR Labs' policy to not build too real looking cyborgs anymore, kneeling next to this one he understands the reasoning behind it. It's upsetting to see someone looking like a person lying in the trash like dead, the resemblance creating empathy. And empathy is definitely not something that is wanted by many customers.

 

Cisco pulls the man out of the trash pile. He is stupidly tall, in Cisco's opinion, and heavy, of course, and Cisco is glad he decided to take his bike today. With some effort he throws him over the backseat. Cisco steps away to look at his work. It doesn't look good at all. He snaps the tarp up and wraps it around the man. Yeah, better. Now it looks less like Cisco is kidnapping a person and more like he is doing his usual work of recovering material. He hums a tune as he hops on the bike himself and it lifts from the ground.

 

Traffic is cramped as usual but he makes it home in without much trouble. When he reaches his apartment block he rises into the air with the bike until he reaches his apartment on the thirteenth floor. He parks the bike on the platform in front of his door. Getting the man inside turns into a bit more of a hassle but Cisco manages. He is used to transporting heavy material. He puts him into one of the frames in his workshop. It holds the body upright so Cisco has better access to work on it. He goes over to the kitchen for a moment to heat up some water for tea. This would probably occupy the rest of the day, if not much longer. Cisco's mind is already racing, going through possibilities and things he should try. He has never seen something quite like this. When the tea is ready he walks back into his workshop.

 

It is the only room in the apartment without windows and Cisco spends a lot of effort to keep it as dry as is possible in this area. The constant humid air and rain isn't good for the electronics. Not that it kept STAR Labs from revolutionizing everything that involves cyborgs, robots and AI's. And no one stopped them from patenting their shit so hardcore that everyone else struggles to catch up with them. That's why most of the Advanced Technology, as they like to call it, comes from them nowadays.

 

Cisco plops down on a chair opposite from the man and blows on his tea. For a moment he just looks and marvels at what humanity as reached as a whole. Creating life like this, in their image. There was just one dude before who did that. Though the cyborg isn't especially lively right now. He has dark hair, light skin, somewhere in the middle of the human life, if Cisco had to guess. His clothes look more comfortable than functional or fashionable; dark in dark. And one shoe is missing as Cisco had noticed before.

 

He gets up from the chair and walks over to him. He straightens the sweater a bit, that had been rumpled from the transport. Cisco notices pieces of scrap stuck in his hair and he has to get up on his tip-toes to pick them out. He combs through the hair carefully, and it is fascinating. Cisco knows his thoughts keep repeating, but it feels so real! He has never seen STAR Labs utilize fabric like this. It feels like that black market organic stuff that is ridiculous expensive. Maybe it's just real hair. Experimentally he takes one of the hands into his hands. Turns it over to study the lines on the palm. And he is definitely cyborg. Skin like this can only be real, artificially created of course, but real skin nonetheless. Someone had a real boner for detail here. But that's all the room Cisco allows for his curiosity. Not before he has talked to him.

 

He walks around the frame, picking up his tablet on the way. He pulls down the sweater on the back to get a closer look at the access panel. It takes him a while to figure out how to open it, and he is already having horror scenarios of having to _cut_ him open, but luckily the skin finally gives way to reveal the logo underneath. It's STAR Labs, all right. There is a socket and Cisco connects his tablet to it. As the program loads up on the screen Cisco sits back down in the chair with his tea. He has expected a password, some sort of protection but there is nothing. Just code spilling over the screen. Very, very strange code. The parts Cisco can decipher are so old school he has to cringe. And then there are parts that make no sense at all, parts that are completely redundant, that don't mean anything, long sentences that lead nowhere, circling back on themselves. Cisco gives up scrolling through the seemingly endless stream of code. Instead he initiates the program.

 

He startles so bad at the whirring sound that he almost drops his tea. He eyes the man suspiciously. Booting up shouldn't be that loud. No matter how old the model. Well, he did pull him out of the trash after all. Maybe he was lying there for a reason. Maybe there wouldn't be anything left in there to answer Cisco. The code doesn't get his hopes up. Cisco gets up from his chair to walk closer to the man. After a moment the sounds die down and Cisco thinks, so much for that.

 

But then the man opens his eyes. They are a sharp, clear blue. Cisco takes a deep breath.

 

The man tries to move but he is still suspended in the frame. He narrows his eyes at Cisco. “Where am I?” His voice is a low rasp.

 

“At my place,” Cisco says. “I pulled you out of the trash.”

 

“The trash,” The man says slowly, looking around himself. Cisco can see on his tablet that is still displaying the program that he is thinking in super speed basically. “This is a chop shop,” He states finally.

 

“Excuse me?” Cisco says. “This is not a - -” He stops himself. “Well, my bad. I didn't introduce myself. I'm Cisco Ramon.”

 

“Is that supposed to mean anything to me?” The man snaps.

 

“No,” Cisco says patiently. “It's okay. I don't usually take credit for my work. And this isn't a chop shop. I fix up tech - - in a tech friendly way.”

 

“How generous of you,” The man says, sarcasm dripping from his voice. Cisco already likes this AI.

 

But he also sees him tearing at the frame that is restraining him. Cisco quickly offers up, “Wait a second, and I'll get you out of that. Then we can talk.”

 

The man glares at him but stops moving. Cisco walks around to remove the cable out of the access panel and move the skin over it again. He feels the man twitch under his touch. Then he releases the holds of the frame. The man quickly steps out of them. Cisco half expects him to bold. After all he had just experienced the tech equivalent of waking up hung up in a butcher shop with someone wielding a big ass knife in front of his face. But after a tense second he simply turns around and looks expectantly at Cisco.

 

Cisco leads the way to the kitchen and offers him a chair. The man folds himself together to fit at Cisco's small table, staring kind of forlorn at his bare foot.

 

“Did you steal my shoe?” He asks but instantly goes on, “You said you found me in the trash?”

 

“Yeah, weird, right?” Cisco says. It's not unusual to find parts in the trash but a whole model that is still running? There are other, more lucrative ways to get rid it of that.

 

“No, not at all,” The man replies but doesn't seem in the mood to elaborate.

 

“Do you have a name?” Cisco asks.

 

The man thinks for a moment, looking over Cisco's shelves and the posters on the wall. “Harry,” He finally says. “My name is Harry.”

 

“Good, Harry,” Cisco says and Harry looks at him kind of funny but Cisco doesn't even want to know. “As I told you before this is not a chop shop. But if you need me to take a look at anything I'll gladly do that. You know how you sound when you boot-”

 

“Don't ever do that again,” Harry interrupts him. “Don't touch me.” His voice is hard.

 

“Okay,” Cisco says and raises his hands in a placating gesture. He can't deny he is a bit disappointed that he doesn't get the chance to poke around a bit more but whatever. If he doesn't want his help.

 

“So, what now?” Harry asks, looking at Cisco again with expectation.

 

Cisco shrugs. “You tell me.”

 

Harry stares at him a bit longer. Then he gets up and walks over to the window. He stands there for quite some time, motionless, and Cisco lets him. Finishes his tea in the meantime.

 

“I need a place to stay,” Harry says when he turns back around.

 

“You can stay here,” Cisco says with a smile.

 

“I have nothing to offer,” Harry says. “I don't - - I'm not especially useful.”

 

Cisco's heart aches a bit. He kinda hates STAR Labs a lot right now. For doing this. For creating these categories of usefulness. “That's alright,” He says, his smile not faltering.

 

Harry nods curtly.

 

II.

It's not so different from usual to have Harry around. He doesn't say very much; spends most of his time sulking around, dark clouds basically manifesting over his head. Cisco dares to ask a couple of questions: Where do you come from? What did you do? Why didn't it surprise you that you ended up in the trash? Harry's answers are not exactly unfriendly but short and signalize that he doesn't want to talk about it. Cisco gathers that Harry had worked at STAR Labs instead of being sold off but when Cisco asks what exactly he did there, Harry just shrugs.

 

Cisco asks other questions, too. Can you help me with this? Do you mind picking up something from the store? This summer seems endless, doesn't it? Harry doesn't mind that kind of questions so much. Not that his answers get any longer but he helps Cisco with his work. Goes to the store to buy milk. Mumbles something about the rain messing with his circuits.

 

Whenever customers come over to Cisco's workshop Harry achieves the impossible feat to disappear in some corner of the small apartment. He doesn't really like to go outside either. Maybe it's the rain, or the people or maybe he's just not used to it. Cisco doesn't pry.

 

So Cisco is understandably confused when he comes home one day and Harry is nowhere to be found. He looks everywhere; that takes him hardly half a minute. There is no note on the table either. Cisco leans against the table and looks out of the kitchen window. He didn't pick Harry as the guy to make long goodbyes but he thought he'd stay a bit longer. Cisco looks at the door leading into the inner courtyard of the apartment complex. It's slightly cracked open. Cisco steps to the window and looks outside. With a silent curse he grabs an umbrella from next to the door and jumps outside.

 

Floating steps lead downwards to the garden on the ground. Cisco makes his way down as fast as he can. It is pouring rain.

 

Harry stands in between bushes sprinkled with large red and yellow flowers; barefoot now and staring up in the sky. His hair is plastered to his face, soaking wet just as his clothes. Cisco steps next to him and opens the umbrella. When Cisco holds it over him, subsequently blocking his view, Harry makes a disgruntled noise. But he doesn't move.

 

Cisco's throat closes up. He wants to say, I thought the rain isn't good for you. He wants to say, what the fuck do you think you're doing. He can't say any of it. Just holds the umbrella over Harry.

 

When he finally gets him back into the apartment, they are both wet and cold. Cisco ignores the way he shivers and sits Harry down in a chair. He still doesn't move or say anything but the look in his eyes is chilling. Cisco doesn't know how urgent this really is, how badly rain does effect Harry but he gets him a towel and dry clothes and is about to manhandle him into them before Harry pushes him away and changes himself. Cisco is standing in a corner with crossed arms, pointedly not watching. He knows getting angry doesn't help the situation. But he wishes it would. He wishes he could punch it out of Harry.

 

He hears Harry sit down and fall completely silent again. Cisco walks over to him, resists the urge to take his face between his hands and just check, make sure he is okay, look for where the water might have made his way under the skin and into what is keeping Harry alive.

 

“Don't look like that,” Harry says finally.

 

“I look however I damn well please,” Cisco snaps.

 

Harry looks to the side, stares at the table like there is something incredibly fascinating to see there. He looks so out of place suddenly, in Cisco's clothes that are too small for him and with all that pain written across his face. Cisco wishes he would know where it comes from, how to fix it.

 

“Just, please,” Cisco is wringing is hands, “Let me take a look. Just to make sure everything is alright.”

 

“No,” Harry says toneless, still not looking at Cisco. “I told you. No.”

 

“I'm trying to help you,” Cisco says, and he is getting frustrated running against all those walls that Harry puts up all around him.

 

Finally Harry looks at him, a softer touch to his face. “I know,” He says. And he opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, and if he is going to ask why Cisco is going to start throwing punches. But he closes his mouth again without a sound leaving it. Looks away again.

 

Cisco leaves the room feeling lightheaded and cold to the bones.

 

III.

Harry is actually pretty brilliant. He is from a time where they not only made the bodies realer but also the AI's smarter. Both things that aren't that desirable in a cyborg these days. Not many people like it when their tech is smarter than them. Cisco loves it. Makes Harry run every calculation no matter how mundane, like a child discovering a calculator for the first time. One time Cisco asks him how much seven plus two twenty is during grocery shopping and Harry opens his mouth, ready to answer, before glaring at Cisco and throwing an apple at him. Cisco catches the apple and grins cheekily.

 

Just a few weeks in Harry knows his way around Cisco's workshop like he never worked anywhere else. At first he only cautiously watches as Cisco takes apart parts and pieces he found, tossing what is irrevocably broken and stashing what he still can use. The first time a customer brings in a cyborg for repairs Harry lurks around the shut-off body hanging in one of the frames for a while. When Cisco goes to work, carefully removing the damaged arm to take a closer look at it, he asks Harry to hand him a screwdriver and the tool is lying in his hand faster than he can even stretch it out. He feels Harry leaning over his shoulder as he opens up the synthetic skin of the arm to reveal the wires underneath. Harry clicks his tongue, seeing the damage at the same time as Cisco. Cisco starts isolating the damaged wire and before he knows what is happening Harry is talking at him and pokes his fingers into the wires to show Cisco what he should do. Cisco pushes Harry's hand to the side while smiling to himself. After that Harry helps him most of the days.

 

On other days he starts reading his way through Cisco's book shelf. Cisco gets suddenly and very intensely self-conscious about his book collection but Harry doesn't make a comment; just reads one book after the other, no matter if fiction or science magazine.

 

One stormy night there is a loud banging against the front door. Cisco startles awake. He stumbles to the door where Harry is leaning against the wall armed with the umbrella.

 

“Relax,” Cisco says and presses the umbrella down. He flicks the lights on and opens the door.

 

Hartley storms into the apartment in his usual whirlwind of words and movements. Cisco closes the door and puts a hand on Harry's arm to keep him calm.

 

“Oh, I see you got a new one in recovery,” Hartley says as he sees Harry. Cisco notices the quiet squeaks in his voice.

 

“Yeah, that's Harry,” Cisco says and then motions towards Hartley who is already half in the workshop. “That's Hartley.”

 

Hartley only waves quickly and disappears into the workshop. Cisco follows him inside where Hartley has already dropped his bag on the ground and shed his trench coat. He sits down in a chair and starts unbuttoning his shirt.

 

“This really doesn't sound good,” Cisco murmurs as he leans over Hartley.

 

“I know,” Hartley says, trying to sound snappy but his voice is faltering. His opened shirt reveals metallic panels that replace most of Hartley's neck, reaching down to his chest. Cisco knows that they also reach far up over Hartley's skull, but there they are covered with new synthetic skin. Cisco grabs the back of his neck with one hand to keep him still and removes one of the plates with the other. They are smooth, elegant looking panels, under them the shifting and clicking of Hartley's reconstructed throat. Someone spend a lot of money on those. Because Hartley never tells anything about himself, still leaving a large amount of money every time he leaves in cars that are too big to belong to him, Cisco has chosen to believe that he is the the kept boy of a mafia boss. Cisco pulls a lamp closer to get a good look inside and gets working on fixing Hartley's voice modulator.

 

When Hartley had come to Cisco the first time he had looked extremely irritated, making snide comments about Cisco's tiny apartment and the bad neighborhood. He said a friend referred Cisco to him in all things Advanced tech but he didn't want to say what is problem was. When he left Cisco thought he'd never see him again. But a few weeks later Hartley had burst into Cisco's apartment in a dramatic entry that Cisco later learned is the only way Hartley enters anything; telling Cisco he couldn't breathe while almost passing out on Cisco's floor. He had yanked his shirt open unceremoniously, showing Cisco the metal beneath. Cisco saved his life that day and since then Hartley shows up semi-regularly for fixes. Because no matter how expensive and high-tech the reconstruction was it's an intricate machinery that breaks easy. And it isn't STAR Lab so there aren't many places to go for fixes that aren't black market dumps.

 

Over time Cisco understood why Hartley was so picky with his choice of repair shop. Hartley hates it, what happened to him, how vulnerable it makes him, especially in front of the person that repairs him. He never told Cisco how it happened, if it was an accident or something else. He doesn't tell him why he chose to trust Cisco either. He just comes and goes, makes a few comments about how Cisco could do much better in his life than this miserable workshop and pays good money. That's been going on for a few years now. They barely know each other. And maybe that's for the best. Maybe that's the only way Hartley can let his guard down and let Cisco help him.

 

Neither of them hears Harry come into the room. “A bastard,” He says. It sounds more like he is making a note to himself than it is directed at Hartley. Cisco pulls his hands away quickly before Hartley whips around, his face red with anger but no voice.

 

“Leave the room,” Cisco says to Harry, a hand firmly on Hartley's shoulder to keep him from jumping up. Harry does as he is told, closing the door behind him with a bang.

 

The tension leaves Hartley again, he slumps back in the chair, shame burning in his eyes. Cisco doesn't know if he should say something but with Hartley it's mostly better not to say anything. So he just gets back to work.

 

Once the term cyborg had referred to people exactly like Hartley: born human turned part machine later. But with the invention of AI's and the rise of synthetically grown biological material the term shifted. Not that there are less people who have reconstructions like Hartley, or other advancements made, but it all got tangled up in identity politics. The AI's in flesh bodies had claimed the term to distance themselves from robots and humans alike; referring to technically advanced humans as 'bastards'. Neither of both worlds. Some wear that label with pride. Hartley, who hides his metal under shirts and high collars, doesn't.

 

As soon as Cisco is finished and has placed the metal panel back Hartley jerks away and starts buttoning his shirt.

 

“Sorry about Harry,” Cisco says.

 

“Yeah, whatever,” Hartley says, voice sounding normal again.

 

When they leave the workshop it's already light outside. Hartley leaves without another word. Cisco just sighs and sets up water for coffee. Later when he sits on his bed with the coffee, browsing through his inbox to look for any interesting offers Harry comes in and sits down cross-legged on the floor in front of the bed.

 

“I didn't mean anything by it,” He says. “I don't give a shit what anyone is made of. I was just stating the facts.”

 

Cisco doesn't look up. “You stated the facts very passive-aggressive.” Harry makes a sound but Cisco interrupts him, “I don't need you to explain yourself to me.”

 

That shuts Harry up for a while. Cisco glances at him. He is wearing the shorts and shirt that they had bought him a while ago. Cisco had been of the opinion that Harry is intelligent enough to buy his own shit even if he had never done it before but Harry had pouted at him until Cisco had given in. But Harry played himself with that move because Cisco convinced him to buy the most ridiculous stuff (Harry's words. 'This is ridiculous,' he exclaimed while Cisco handed him a shirt with cacti on it.) that he probably wouldn't even have looked at without Cisco.

 

“Uh,” Harry says after a while. “The guy said 'a new one'. There were others like me?”

 

“Yeah.” Cisco puts his tablet away. Watches Harry's face and then says softly, “It's not so easy to figure out where you fit in if you could never think about it.”

 

“Huh,” Harry says. He chuckles quietly. “Guess our crises are never as special as we like to believe.”

 

III.

The summer always ends with a bang. One day it is sweltering hot and over night the temperatures drop immensely. And just like every year, the heating in Cisco's apartment complex doesn't survive the sudden change. It's annoying because it means living at least a few days in the cold and Cisco hates few things more than being cold. Harry, of course, is still sporting short sleeves, totally unimpressed by the weather. Cisco wishes his skin would turn just as insensitive so his hands would stop shaking and he could actually work. Instead he is standing bundled up in a big sweater at the running stove, warming his hands over it.

 

Harry wanders into the kitchen, cocking his head to the side as he watches him. Cisco glares at him, daring him to say anything stupid. His nerves are running thin today. Harry walks closer.

 

“Are you cold?” He asks.

 

Cisco closes his eyes and breathes slowly. In, out, in, out. He can deal with this in a nonviolent manner. But before he can say anything Harry wraps his arms around him from behind. Cisco freezes instantly, eyes wide open. He tries to sort through all the things that are going on his head right now but then he realizes that Harry is warm and some primal instinct kicks in. He turns around in Harry's arms and pulls him closer. “Can I-?” He asks but his hands are already slipping under Harry's shirt without his control to press against warm skin. Harry doesn't even shiver.

 

They stand like this for a while without saying anything. Cisco presses his face against Harry's chest, soaking in the warmth. Then he notices the whirring sound and his brain kicks back in. He draws his head back to look up at Harry. He is warm? Cisco raises his hand in what he knows is a stupid human gesture to feel Harry's forehead but he can't help it.

 

“You know you're overheating, right?” He asks.

 

Harry just shrugs. “Isn't that lucky for you.”

 

“Does that happen often?” Cisco asks. He knows it would be pretty fucking disrespectful to ask Harry again to let him try to repair him after Harry already said no two times.

 

“From time to time,” Harry says, as if his innards are not currently trying to fry him to death.

 

Cisco leans back into him with a sigh. Why did he get stuck with this stubborn mess of a cyborg? He always tries to do the right thing, to help people. But what is he supposed to do when his help is not wanted. Harry shifts, pressing him closer and saying close to his ear, “Don't look like that.”

 

“You don't even see what I'm looking like right now,” Cisco murmurs against Harry's shoulder.

 

“Actually I know exactly what you're looking like right now, and I don't like it,” Harry says.

 

“Well, and I actually don't like you,” Cisco says, eyes pressed close together.

 

“Liar,” Harry says.

 

Cisco thinks that he should probably let go, take a step back, but Harry makes no move to do so either, so Cisco tells himself it's okay to hold on just a moment longer. He fists his hands in Harry's shirt and breathes and thinks about how he has to climb into his freezing cold bed now and try to sleep. He really hates this time of year.

 

He extracts himself when he gets too conscious about Harry's hand rubbing small circles on his lower back that make Cisco almost fall asleep right there leaning against Harry.

 

“I should-” Cisco interrupts himself with a yawn. “- go to bed.”

 

Harry stands there, flexing his hand for a moment. “Do you want - - me to - -”

 

Cisco has never thought he'd live to see Harry lost for words. But the feeling is mutual at the moment. “Ye- I mean - - only if you - - want to.”

 

Harry nods, once, and very serious as if he is agreeing to some herculean task and not just spending body heat to poor Cisco. Which sounds a bit weird if Cisco is honest with himself but he's not going to be that right now.

 

But it is weird, really weird, when he climbs under the blankets to Harry. He lies down, tense as a plank. But Harry murmurs a small, “Come on,” and pulls him closer. Cisco gradually relaxes, and they arrange their limbs until they are in a somewhat comfortable position. Now that he's just in a shirt he feels even closer to Harry and there is a traitorous voice in his head screaming at the top of its lungs but he quiets it down best he can. His eyes are drooping already anyway.

 

“Just 'til I'm asleep, okay,” He murmurs against Harry's collarbone. “You don't have to stay - - whole night.”

 

He doesn't hear Harry's answer anymore.

 

When he wakes up the next morning he is lying on his side, a body pressed against his back. He almost falls back asleep, pulled under by the comfortable feeling of being held, until he realizes that that is Harry who has his arm around him, hand stretched possessively over his chest. Cisco looks over his shoulder. Harry has his eyes closed but opens them when he notices Cisco moving.

 

“I said you could go,” Cisco says. “Did you just watch me sleep the whole night?”

 

“Don't be ridiculous,” Harry says. “I went into stand-by at some point.” He sounds as irritated by Cisco as usual but there is a small smile playing around his lips. Cisco doesn't try to decipher what that means. He just drops his head back on the pillow, still too comfortable to move or to really think about any of this. Harry hums content, his arm around Cisco tightening. Cisco closes his eyes again. He slips his own hand over Harry's on his chest and treads their finger together. It's really nice to be held, there wasn't much of that in Cisco's life lately. Or ever.

 

At some point they do get out of bed, Cisco feeling heat rise to his cheeks as he thinks about what he'd rather do right now. Over the course of the day the heating comes back to life and Cisco is almost disappointed. That night he goes to sleep, warm but alone.

 

IV.

Months go by and Harry doesn't leave. Cisco doesn't complain. He has gotten so used to having him around by now. The winter is short as usual and when the first trees are blooming again Cisco drags Harry out for a walk. They are halfway through the park around the corner from the apartment when Harry stops dead in his tracks. Cisco follows his gaze. He is staring at a young woman ahead of them who has stopped walking looking just as surprised as Harry. She comes closer now, short brown hair pulled into a ponytail and wearing black pants and a light pink blouse in the colors of the cherry blossoms that bloom all around them.

 

“Jesse,” Harry says when she stops in front of them.

 

“Harrison,” She says. And then there is a bright smile filling her face. “I can't believe it. It's you. I thought – They said -”

 

“Yeah,” Harry says and Cisco observes how the lines of his face go soft. “They did. He picked me out of the trash.” He gestures towards Cisco.

 

“Worst decision of my life,” Cisco says and Harry rolls his eyes. Jesse looks back and forth between them. “Uh, I'm Cisco,” He introduces himself quickly.

 

“Jesse,” She says and chuckles. “I see you made a friend, Harrison.”

 

“I prefer Harry now,” He says, ignoring the face Cisco pulls.

 

Harry wanders off mid-conversation in the way he sometimes does where Cisco isn't sure if Harry is really a jerk like that, or if it just gets too much sometimes or if it is another glitch in his code that makes him disconnect with the world for a while. Cisco sits down on a bench with Jesse.

 

“Who is he?” He asks her. “His code is super weird. I haven't seen anything like it.”

 

Jesse smiles and it looks a bit sad. „That's probably because he is super old. He was one of the first cyborgs STAR Labs created. For a long time he was the face of the campaign. I think he was modeled after the head scientist at the time.”

 

“Oh my god,” Cisco says.

 

“Yeah, I know,” Jesse says. “Trust male scientist to be the vainest persons on earth. But the line got discarded after a while. His type had the potential to form AI's that were too strong. You know how he is. Can't tell him what to do. He was useless to STAR Labs. They didn't build him to have too much of a personality. That all came over the years. His code got cluttered. I guess they didn't know how to reverse it or didn't care enough to do it because they were building _better_ models already. For a while they had him in a museum to tell the grand story of STAR Labs but when he got too moody for that they turned him off and put him away. The only time he would get turned on was when students or scientists wanted to get a look at him. That's how I met him. I wrote a paper on the history of AI's in my last year of college when STAR Labs had already promised to sign me on after my graduation. I felt bad for him. So I talked to him whenever I had the time. One day I came in and he was simply gone. They told me he had gone completely off the rails. I thought he would lie crushed in some landfill by now. So thank you for saving him.” Jesse takes his hand. “Really.”

 

“That's what I do,” Cisco says absent-minded, distracted by working through what he just heard.

 

“It's a good thing,” Jesse says.

 

Cisco focuses on her, the smile on her young face and the sadness in her eyes. “He's falling apart,” He says.

 

“I know,” She says.

 

“He won't let me help him,” Cisco says. And it hurts to say it out loud. “I think he wants to -”

 

Jesse looks away and squeezes his hand. Cisco looks at the people walking past them. Looks up in the clear sky. The sun shines in full force. Soon the rain will come again. Harry comes back to them, three ice cream cones in his hands.

 

“They only had vanilla,” He says and hands them both a cone.

 

“Thank you,” Jesse says and lets go of Cisco's hand to wipe over her face.

 

Harry sits down next to her and they eat their ice cream in silence. Cisco watches Harry out of the corner of his eyes. If he tries to it the ice-cream Cisco will have to spend the rest of the afternoon scraping it back out of him. And he'd rather not. But Harry just holds it until it melts and runs over his fingers.

 

Before they say goodbye to Jesse, Cisco exchanges numbers with her. If has to carry this weight he can at least vent about it to her. They are already walking away when Harry asks Cisco to wait and turns back to Jesse.

 

“Maybe we can meet,” Cisco hears Harry say to her. “Again. From time to time.”

 

“I'd like that.” Jesse says.

 

V.

“She told you,” Harry states. “About me.”

 

They have wandered deeper into the park. There aren't many people around anymore, the vegetation taller and thicker around them. There are clouds hanging in the sky now.

 

“I asked her,” Cisco says. “Sorry.”

 

“No,” Harry says quietly. “I want you to know.”

 

Cisco looks up at him. Harry pushes his hands in the pockets of his pants and smiles tightly at Cisco. They walk silently for a while.

 

“I have memories,” Harry speaks up again, “Of things that never happened. They planted them in me. Gave me a whole life. Just to see if they could. But it's not really giving if it isn't _there_ , is it.” He squints up at the sky. “I miss people that don't exist. I long for a home that I can never reach. I don't know how anyone is supposed to live like this.”

 

Cisco swallows hard. Harry looks at him now and it's almost too much to bear.

 

“I know you want to help me,” He says. Grabs Cisco by the arm and stops him. Cisco wants to turn, run away from this conversation. “I don't need you to fix me,” Harry says. “I just need-” He stops himself. Cisco feels like he is floating, nothing tethering him to the earth anymore but Harry's hand on his arm.

 

The sky breaks open and releases a torrent of water over them. Harry still looks at Cisco like he wants more than can be said in words. The last people around them disappear to hide from the rain. Cisco takes Harry's hand and pulls him along. Around the corner is a wooden pavilion and Cisco pulls Harry under the roof. He doesn't let go of his hand.

 

Cisco knows that Harry is looking at him but he can't meet his eyes. His heart is aching.

 

“Don't look like that,” Harry says.

 

“Like what,” Cisco asks.

 

“So sad.”

 

“You make me sad,” Cisco says.

 

Harry brushes his hand over Cisco's cheek. “I don't want that.”

 

“What _do_ you want?” Cisco asks, facing Harry now.

 

Harry furrows his brows, searching Cisco's face as if he could find the answer there. Their hands are still joined between them. It is still raining. Cisco's heart skips a beat and then Harry leans down and kisses him.

 

Cisco closes his eyes. It feels like falling. Harry cups his face in his hands and Cisco clings to him, desperate all of a sudden. When Harry pulls back Cisco sways a bit to follow him.

 

“I wasn't meant to do this,” Harry states. He studies Cisco's face.

 

“How was it?” Cisco breathes, still looking at his lips.

 

“Disappointing,” Harry says with just a slight note of annoyance in his voice. “I don't - - feel very much.” Cisco flicks his gaze to Harry's eyes that are still firmly trained on his face. “But,” He adds, “I like this.” And he pulls Cisco closer with a hard jerk of his arm around Cisco's waist. Cisco gasps, his hands clutching in Harry's shirt and his heart picking up speed. Harry smirks.

 

“Of course you do,” Cisco says, and can't even find it in him to be irritated.

 

Harry leans down and kisses him again. His lips are cool but soft and Cisco sighs against them. Harry chuckles and puts his other arm around Cisco's neck. Cisco leans his head against Harry's chest. There is nothing to hear, no heartbeat, no whirring; Harry is completely still.

 

“I like this,” Harry repeats and rests his cheek against Cisco's head.

 

It's still raining. Harry is solid and real in Cisco's arms. It's still raining.

 


End file.
